Almost Morning
by LuxKnight
Summary: Max's thoughts at the end of 'Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne'. Spoiler warning! Don't read if you haven't finished the game yet!


Max Payne 2:  
  
Almost Morning  
  
"You're a real angel, Max."  
  
She was right about that. I am her angel. The angel of her death. In a warp of reality, time slows down to the point where it reaches a negative pace, and starts flowing backwards. It reaches back from that critical moment in time, the starting point of it's endless circle - from the night the pain started.  
  
Like I said, the past is a gaping hole. But the future is also a hole in the ground of memory, a blank space, a thing created by your imagination that has no physical existence. Eventually, future becomes the present when present becomes the past. This very moment, this fantasy we call 'here and now' is an abyss, bridging past and future. It is the moment between two seconds. Existence is an illusion.  
  
And the face of this illusion is a face of a woman. Gruesome peace of death surrounds her, but those pair of empty eyes reflect a picture of rage. That picture is me, covered in blood and fury, my every word a helpless cry of frenzy, as pathetic as it is. And I don't want that solaced, beautiful face to have eyes reflecting anger anymore. The only way to change that picture is to change my ways, find my own peace and relief, to become a man I would want to see in the eyes of love. My final act for her. For both of them.  
  
I look back into the gaping hole only to see it fade back into the present. Then I realize what has just happened, quite belatedly for the fact that it happened for the second time in my life. Because of her, I had solved the case. My case, all of it. Who I am. And the results didn't come up different at all. Have I been smarter, one of these two women now wouldn't be entangled in fate's mortal web.  
  
"God! I turned out to be such a damsel in distress."  
  
She was dead. The bullet in her head had come to the end of it's slow motion journey. In that moment of deliverance, they all had become one - Michelle and Mona, those two fatal bullets. Two deaths, marking the ends of two different eras. One dream, one nightmare. No matter what you see while asleep, you have to let it go before waking up.  
  
Shades of her blood slurred in front of my eyes. I didn't ask her to kill or die for me, it was her sacrifice, her gift. On the way she made me realize that I'm still alive, able to love and care, that I still know grieve won't ease the pain. I'm still the man my wife fell in love with. It would be a mistake to try and satisfy the needs of a man I'm not.  
  
But what you are is a mistery, a shadow cast by candlelight, fragile and snappy. You can unsolve it only by finding out what you are not. For the past four years, it remained a simple answer, since I became the emptiness that hunted my days. The emptiness of the soul makes every single thing in the world something not part of you.  
  
Now the time has come to ask that question again, and my inner answer sounds awfully buoyant. I am not a happy husband, father of a baby girl anymore. But I also am not a tortured, suicidal wreck of a cop. Like the phoenix I rise, making the leap from something familiar to something new again, out of the ashes. Flying higher and higher, clouds disappear behind me, all obstacles melt into thin air. It is infinity opened up. And now I know there is no sky, but for those who stand on the ground.  
  
She was dead, and loosing her was so much it finally filled up the endless emptiness of my soul. In the stream of time, I stare back at the moment she found me. Only in the context of looking back can this magical occurence exist as a particular moment - at the time it happened, it was just a rock thrown into the pool of my fate, setting up little waves on the surface. No one could have predicted the sweeping flood it eventually caused.  
  
It is almost morning. Waking up from the american dream. Waking up from the nightmare.  
  
It was a true miracle, the way I longed for her when everything in the world seemed transparent. After all those years of overwhelming numbness, she woke my senses. All the things I want, rehearsed in order, like a shopping list I finally managed to take back from the devil's hands. With her by my side, all the monsters of my past wouldn't stop me.  
  
But she was dead, and I could do nothing but let her go. When you can finally let go of something, it suddenly becomes yours. Now, like all my loves, she is mine forever.  
  
She has brought me here, to this moment of clarity, where time slows down and I choose to look back, to see myself. Everything surrounding me now, her dead body, the shatters of my life, it is just an after image of things long gone. Like looking into a mirror that is reflecting a mirror, everything flips back, showing the real image through balanced distortion. I can look back and see my future, a possible version of it - going crazy, seeking revenge, holding onto the pain. All I have to do is repeat all the choices I made when my wife was murdered. Simple as that, standing at this divine intersection, now I know which road leads back to darkness. Seeing clearly is redemption. This time I burn down, and when I finally rise from the ashes, I choose to spread my wings differently, to take off and fly in a new direction.  
  
Killing doesn't bring life to anyone's world, either way. Death was the price she paid for helping me out of that gaping hole. She made me let go of everything, for rebirth is not about getting something. It is about losing something. And in that act of seeing, I am reborn.  
  
That old, familiar feeling kicks in. She's dead, leaving behind inevitable mourning, the final duty of us lucky survivors. In a sick way, it is actually a relieving pain. A kind of sadness I'm glad to be able to feel, after being dead empty for all those years. My tears dried long ago, but I remember that bittersweet taste they would feel right now. To honor her valour, I hold on to the rare gift she's given me, the chance to live again, with memories free of sorrow. Two women blend into one in my whirlwind of memories.  
  
No man has ever been so grateful. For Michelle making me happy for the first time, for Mona making me sad for the first time. Like the phoenix I rise, having them with me, so we can all leave the ashes behind.  
  
In a warp of reality, time reaches the end of it's circle. At last, I'm done with my late goodbye. For the time being, I have only one tough job to do, learn to live again, and just hope it won't kill me. But when I look at myself in the eyes of my loves, I see a reflection of peace and redemption, a picture finally worthy of their beautiful face.  
  
I had a dream of my wife. She was dead. But it was all right. 


End file.
